Prospective PhD students - There is opportunity for exceptional students to work on a number of interesting projects. Please contact me for further information. 

Prospective Masters students - The Kevin Spring Memorial Scholarship is available for research masters (ME) students. Contact me if you have questions. 

MacRae presented online webinar/lecture to the Montreal Structural Engineers association, "Christchurch, Ten years after: Thoughts on earthquake recovery, Reconstruction, and improving a city", 21st April 2021.

Journal of Earthquake Engineering. MacRae joined editorial board as an associate editor managing submissions. January 2021.

MacRae appointed as reviewer for the MBIE College of Assessors  for the Endeavour fund, December 2020.

ROBUST Show and Tell at QuakeCoRE l MAnnuaeeting , 8 Dec 2020 Photo

ROBUST Discussion at QuakeCoRE Annual Meeting, 9 Dec 2020 Photo

End of Year Research Group Party 2020 Photo

The Steel Construction New Zealand (SCNZ) Chairman's Award "For Outstanding Contribution to The Structural Steel Industry" was presented to MacRae at the SCNZ Members Conference in Queenstown, 13 November 2020.  Link #1 Link #2

Papers published online by the 2020 World Conference of Earthquake Engineering (WCEE). 

In the 2020 NZSEE conference proceedings MacRae led papers describing new ways to consider (i) design of BRB frames considering out-of-plane deformations, and (ii)  hysteresis loop effects on inelastic displacements of structures. The concept reconciles initial stiffness based displacement prediction methods (such as those developed by Newmark et al., as included in NZS1170.5 and most other international standards) with secant stiffness based approaches (such as those popularized by Gulkan and Sozen, as well as by Priestley in conjunction with his pushover approaches). Both papers are provided on this group website.

Prof. Patrick Paultre from Sherbrooke University, Quebec, was hosted  as an Erskine visitor during February 2020.

MacRae participated in the Seismology and Earthquake Engineering (SEE8) Conference,  Tehran, Iran, 11-13 November 2019 and made an invited keynote presentation on the Christchurch Recovery, as well as invited talks related to Loss, as well as Resilient Construction. In addition, he made a presentation to local consulting engineers about “Improving a City”.

MacRae gave invited keynote lecture to the Canadian Conference on Earthquake Engineering, Quebec, June 2019.

MacRae spent 2019 at Tongji University, Shanghai, China.

End of Year Research Group Party Photo 2018

MacRae joins NZSEE Bulletin Editorial Board, 11/2018

21 March - 22 April 2018 - Prof. Robert Tremblay from Polytechnique Montréal was hosted at the University of Canterbury.

ROBUST (RObust BUilding SysTems) planning meetings #3 was held on 14 January 2017. This project involves the testing of a two storey full scale building system on the Tongji shaking table in Shanghai. System energy dissipation is entirely by friction, and non-structural elements are included. It is desired that there be fully operational performance after significant shaking. This is an all NZ effort with full collaboration with  Chinese colleagues.

STESSA '18 - Hosted the 9th International Conference on Behaviour of Steel Structures in Seismic Areas,  Christchurch, New Zealand 14-17 February 2018 www.scnz.org/STESSA2018

November 2017. End of Year Group Party.

Nov 2017. Bruneau and MacRae QuakeCentre Report on the Christchurch Rebuild Decisions produced together with many NZ professionals. 

Nov 2017. Undergrad students Raharuhi Koia and Jack Needham received departmental “Commendation for Poster Presentation at Final Year Undergraduate Research Conference, 2017"

Feb-March 2017.Michel Bruneau visited to complete a study on the Christchurch rebuild.

9-13 January 2017. World Conference on  Earthquake Engineering (WCEE), Santiago, Chile. 

Our group delivered a number of oral papers/presentations. We organised or co-organised five sessions on BRB Issues (3), Diaphragms (1); and Low Damage Construction (1). Also, MacRae represented NZ at the IAEE General Assembly.

25-27 November 2016. Australian Earthquake Engineering Society (AEES) Conference, Melbourne. Delivered keynote address about the Christchurch Rebuild after 2011, and an invited lecture about the November 2016 Kaikoura Earthquake Sequence.

November 2016. End of Year Group Party.

9 May 2016.Visited by Prof. Richard Sause (Lehigh Univ)

1-3 April 2016:. Several group members made presentations and posters for NZSEE annual conference. Ben Westeneng wins student presentation prize for paper on gusset plates for BRB frames.

31 March 2016:. Invited lecture on sliding of contents at SPONSE workshop.

February-March 2016:. Ben Sitler, Californian PhD student from Prof Takeuchi's Tokyo Tech group visits for two months. .

February 2016: Dr Ching-Yi Tsai visits. Recently graduated from NTU, Taiwan.

February 2016: Prof Michel Bruneau visits for 1 week to study post-earthquake reconstruction decisions with the UC Quake Centre.

February 2016:. New Structural Engineering Lab news .[3mn - See from a time of about 3:40]

February 2016: Jamaledin Borzouie completes all requirements for PhD. Also, Postdoc Alireza Gholamhoseini has moved on. Both are wished the best.for the future. 

January 2016 Became regional editor for International Journal of Earthquake and Impact Engineering (IJEIE) 

1-4 December 2015. World Engineering Conference, Kyoto. Invited lecture on "Robust Infrastructure"

November 2015. End of Year Group Party.

3-4 September 2015. Steel Innovations Conference Auckland, Keynote with significant group attendance.

1-3 July 2015. STESSA Conference, Shanghai Keynote with significant group attendance.

May 2015. MacRae joins UC Quake Centre Board. Remained there until end 2018)

March 2015:  Prof. Greg Deierlein (Stanford U) comes for 3 months as Erskine visitor. 

19 March 2015: This website was set up